On Thursday, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen and legislators condemned the forced closure of the pro-democratic Apple Daily in Hong Kong, slamming the move as suppression of freedom of speech. Tsai said on Facebook that she was “deeply saddened” by the forced silence of Apple Daily after its tycoon and executives were arrested and assets frozen under the Beijing-imposed national security law in Hong Kong. She said that the tabloid, which printed the last edition on Thursday, is Hongkongers’ symbol of freedom. The vocal newspaper never bows to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and persisted in memorializing the June 4 Tiananmen Massacre, standing with pro-democratic protesters and covering public outcry against the national security law. “I want to tell the secretly ecstatic authoritarians that freedom and democracy are like a tree. It could be cut down, but the seeds have been sown in every corner of the land. There …